Mental health

Frequent contributor Tim Blades on living in poverty, his struggle with illness and mental health issues, and the urgent need to be compassionate and open with one another. “Now I want to delete that last paragraph. My heart is racing just from typing that last paragraph. While I want to be safe and delete that last paragraph, If I let go of that secret, it’s just one less thing for me to hold onto.”

Members of a mental health and addiction peer support group here in Halifax are worried about wait times and the lack of client-centered supports. The position of Senior Director for Mental Health and Addictions becoming vacant offers an opportunity to do better than last time, their open letter states.

Late last week Nova Scotia’s auditor general reported that the province lacks a plan for delivering mental health services to all Nova Scotians, and that standards for wait times aren’t being met. New contributor Jessica Briand has seen it all. “In the last seven years I have seen eight different mental health professionals. I’ve witnessed first-hand the flaws in mental healthcare in Nova Scotia,” she writes.

People manage their depression and anxiety in all kinds of different ways. Your cultural background plays a role in that, and whether you are poor or rich also matters. A study hopes to learn more about the different ways we deal with mental health issues, so that healthcare can become more accommodating. If you live in HRM you can help.

Lisa Bond explains what it is like to live the much publicized mental health crisis in Cape Breton. “With all of these hurdles facing us on this island, it’s not hard to lose hope. How are we as parents supposed to help our kids if we can’t even get them mental health help in a timely fashion? We can monitor their social media, watch their phones, have all their passwords….. but it still takes a village. We need and deserve access to the specialists that can help our kids.”

New contributor Catherine Meyers reflects on the state of mental healthcare in Nova Scotia and the death of her husband at a young age, a death that may well have been preventable. “There are still too many situations like the one I experienced, where people, especially youth, don’t get the right kind of mental health care.”

Lives on Welfare gave a voice to John before, and last week he contacted us because he wanted to talk about the lack of support for people who deal with mental health issues, their own and those of relatives. “All I can do is wait for another suicide attempt,” he says.